Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan ( my, ဖဒိုမန်းရှာလာဖန်း, pwo, ၦဒိၪမၩ့ၡၪလၩဖၩ့; July 5, 1943 – February 14, 2008) was the secretary general of the

Karen National Union The Karen National Union ( my, ကရင် အမျိုးသား အစည်းအရုံး; abbreviated KNU) is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Ka ...

(KNU), an insurgent group in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

Early life

Mahn Sha Lah Phan was born and raised in Tawgyaung,

Maubin District Maubin District ( my, မအူပင်ခရိုင် ) is a district in Ayeyarwady Division, Myanmar. It consists of 39 wards, 235 village groups and 1642 villages organized into four townships - Maubin, Pantanaw, Nyaungdon Nyaungdon ( m ...

. He studied at the

University of Yangon '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

, receiving a degree in history. After graduating, he joined the Karen resistance in Burma, and it was then that, like many other members of the Karen resistance movement, he changed his name to Mahn Sha Lah Phan, which in

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic l ...

means "Mr. Star Moon Bright". He chose star and moon (Sha Lah) to represent the light of the future, and bright (Phan) in the belief that the future would be bright.Phan, Zoya (2009). Little Daughter: a Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West.

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

Activism

The KNU, through its armed wing, the

Karen National Liberation Army The Karen National Liberation Army ( ksw, ကညီဒီကလုာ် တၢ်ထူၣ်ဖျဲး သုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်, my, ကရင်အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတ� ...

, has been fighting against the Burmese government for autonomy for the

Karen people The Karen, kjp, ပ်ုဖၠုံဆိုဒ်, my, ကရင်လူမျိုး, , th, กะเหรี่ยง ( ), also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language ...

since 1949. It operates in both Burma and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

. He served as the Secretary-General of the KNU. Sha Lah Phan was against any form of surrender to the

Burmese government Myanmar ( also known as Burma) operates ''de jure'' as a unitary assembly-independent republic under its 2008 constitution. On 1 February 2021, Myanmar's military took over the government in a coup, causing ongoing anti-coup protests. ...

Personal life

Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan married a former KNU soldier, Nang Kyin Shwe, and had three children in addition to adopting a boy named Say Say. Despite frequently moving back and forth across the Burma-Thailand border, he insisted that his children receive the same education he did, and had adopted Say Say to give him a better education than what would have been available to him in his home village. His two daughters,

Zoya Phan Zoya Phan (born 27 October 1980) is a Burmese political activist. She resides in the United Kingdom, and is the Campaign Manager of the human rights organization Burma Campaign UK. She was an outspoken critic of the Burmese government when it ...

and Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, are both political activists in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, and Bwa Bwa is currently the United Kingdom representative of the

. In 2005, Phan allowed two Burmese children posing as refugees to stay in his house at Noh Poe. The children were really child soldiers who were sent to assassinate both him and Zoya; however, before they could carry out their plan, they admitted their real reason for coming to him. In return, he permitted them to stay at Noh Poe to prevent them from being forced back into the Burmese army.

Assassination

On February 14, 2008 at about 4:30pm in the

border town A border town is a town or city close to the boundary between two countries, states, or regions. Usually the term implies that the nearness to the border is one of the things the place is most famous for. With close proximities to a different cou ...

Mae Sot Mae Sot ( th, แม่สอด, ; my, မဲဆောက်, ; shn, , ) is a city in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar to the west. It is notable as a trade hub and for its substantial population of Burmese migrants and refug ...

, Thailand, Sha Lah Phan was sitting in the

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''vera ...

of his home when two gunmen approached him bearing gifts, which were reportedly fruit baskets. One attacker shot Phan twice in the

chest The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the crea ...

while the second gunman shot him as he lay on the ground. The attackers escaped in a

pick-up truck A pickup truck or pickup is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering) ...

. His house was approximately five kilometres from the Thai-Burmese

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

. He died instantly and was reportedly 64 years old at the time of his death. Phan had predicted an increase in violence ahead of a Burmese constitutional

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

in May 2008, in an

interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...

with

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the week of his death. His adopted son, Say Say Phan, blamed a Karen splinter group, the

Democratic Karen Buddhist Army The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA; my, တိုးတက်သော ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ ကရင်အမျိုးသား တပ်ဖွဲ့) was originally an insurgent group of Buddhist soldiers and officers in Mya ...

(DKBA), for carrying out the attack on behalf of the Burmese military rulers.

References

External links

The Guardian: Burmese rebel leader shot deadBBC News: Burmese rebel leader is shot deadInformation on Pado Mahn Shar
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sha Lah Phan, Padoh Mahn 1943 births 2008 deaths Burmese rebels Burmese people of Karen descent University of Yangon alumni Burmese people murdered abroad People murdered in Thailand Deaths by firearm in Thailand People from Ayeyarwady Region